There were nights, years ago and in Manila, when we would all manage to turn up at one place together: the energy, the vitality in the room would be a palpable force. Many a time, at these magical events, a quiet mood would settle over me and I would sit back from the conversation, look around the room at the faces of my friends, and be aware that I was witnessing one of the happiest moments of my life. At the time, I was convinced that the sheer concentration of vision, talent, quality and character gathered there would, most certainly, change the world…how could it not? I also knew that we would find it harder and harder to come together as we got older…that we would scatter, that we would each go off alone (or go in pairs) and grapple with the narrowed-down parcel of life before us.

Of all the things I had to leave behind when I moved to Australia, the nearness of my friends is what I most deeply miss and feel the loss of.

In all my group of friends, I am the underachiever. No, really, I’m not kidding and I’m not being self-effacing.

Chati

Chati is a painter. A fantastic one. She is also a living doorway into stillness, mindfulness, cosmic harmony. She radiates joy, she treads the razor’s edge of the present moment, and being near her puts all your mind’s chattering, falseness and discontent to rest (and yet she is not some naive and prudish saint…her works are sensual; they revel in being alive, in womanhood, in wildness, in playfulness).

She also keeps a quiet, luminous blog, Ordinary Meditations, about her “quest for everyday enlightenment.”

The reason I wanted to introduce you to Chati, actually, is that she’s written a lovely end-of-the-year post about how she and Edber prepare for the New Year. She has, since publishing this post a couple of days ago, gone completely offline, as they begin a process of mind, body, and spirit cleansing, meditating, reflecting, and space clearing—of both physical objects and “old affirmations, old dreams, old goals. Melt away old pains, old issues with breaths. Go to zero.” I thought I’d share her post with you, in case you wanted your New Year’s rituals to amount to a little bit more than noise-making and a hangover on the first day of 2013.